‘Before You Know It’: To Be Gay, Over 55 and Very Much Alive
Often outside a traditional family structure, a senior generation of gay men and women is creating its own support system, and starring in a new documentary.
By Stephen Saito
March 13, 2013
Comment
men and women march in a parade with a banner for SAGE

Although the current generation of gay seniors still faces inequality when it comes to healthcare, organizations such as SAGE in New York are leading the way to providing services. (Photo: Mike Simpson/Untitled Films)

At the end of Before You Know It, a documentary that premiered this week at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, a title card dedicates the film to the estimated 2.4 million gay, lesbian, straight and transgendered seniors over the age of 55, a number that its director suspects isn’t accurate.

“To be honest, those statistics are just for those who are self-identified and out, right?” director PJ Raval tells TakePart. “There’s probably a number of those that are still closeted [and] if they had the proper support system, would include themselves in that number.”

Raval uncovered a raft of disturbing statistics while working on Before You Know It, which follows three gay seniors in different parts of the U.S. as they respond in different ways to growing old after being part of a generation that bore a brunt of intolerance and hatred so future generations would have less homophobia to endure.

"“The seniors that I’m looking at, the generation that they’ve grown up in, they’ve seen so much change in such a short amount of time, I started thinking these are stories that need to be captured now, and it’s not even so much about the past; it’s about the present.”"

Raval discovered that LGBT seniors, with families that have disowned them in many cases and marginalized by society at large, are half as likely to have health insurance coverage and five times less likely to access social services than seniors who are straight.

The film’s subjects put a human face to those numbers, showing a spectrum of experience in their stories. Dennis, a one-time racquetball champion, lives a quiet life at the LGBT retirement community of Rainbow Vista in Portland, Oregon. Robert is the vivacious owner of the oldest gay bar in Texas (located in Galveston). Ty is an outreach director for SAGE, a New York-based organization that provides services and advocates for LGBT senior citizens.

“The seniors that I’m looking at, the generation that they’ve grown up in, they’ve seen so much change in such a short amount of time,” says Raval, who was inspired to make the film by visiting a gay community center full of seniors and teaching a queer youth filmmaking class. The director realized that both age groups could inform one another. “I started thinking these are stories that need to be captured now, and it’s not even so much about the past; it’s about the present.”

To that end, Raval hopes that equal support is given to the senior LGBT population as is available for youth who are just now discovering their sexual identity.
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“Aging doesn’t discriminate,” Raval says. “And it really is up to us as a community to make sure that we are supporting these senior communities. As Robert in my documentary states, ‘You never think about getting older when you’re younger, but before you know it, it creeps up on you, and you’re there already.’ ”

So true, both that so much has changed so fast, and that so much has not changed for so many. I doubt that many at Care2 over the age of about 50, can remember growing in the era when anyone not white, Christian and straight was treated horribly. I do hope that all of that is at last ending. If Ravel can gather enough stories they will stand (with hope) as a lasting testament to age of bigotry. Narratives like this inform, teach and last for generations. I am reminded of the WPR writers who provided us with the slave narratives, that even today have so much to offer us.
***
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress and includes more than 200 photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division that are now made available to the public for the first time. Born in Slavery was made possible by a major gift from the Citigroup Foundation.

Sunday March 17, 2013, 6:29 pm
You cannot currently send a star to Sue because you have done so within the last day.
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Thanks Kit for providing another documentation effort of past discrimination, bigotry and dehumanization.
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Monday March 18, 2013, 4:54 pm
One way is because their partner is not allowed to visit or get information in some hospitals.
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Monday March 18, 2013, 10:04 pm
True. The years just fly right by. Like I always tell people, even though I'm 35 and have a lot of years ahead of me on the road of life (hopefully) I also have quite a few looking back at me in my rearview mirror. As far as the article goes, nobody should face discrmination or be subjected to subpar care or representation for any reason at all and certainly not for sexual idenity. Equality for all! Thanks JL.

Wednesday March 20, 2013, 1:19 pm
I am gay and over 65 and found the article interesting. I am HIV Neg and have found senior help pretty much non existent unless you want to be past of the bar scene, then there are groups. I do not wish to be part of the bar scene.